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Breaking Tradition

Not Appreciated

By KJ AartilaPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 3 min read
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Breaking Tradition
Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash

When I grew up, we attended huge family gatherings for Thanksgiving. Most were direct family, which was quite large as it was, but often included many shirt-tail relatives and friends. It was fun. Growing up in the Midwest, the fare included a lot of creamy, sugary, butter-laden dishes. And one Aunt always brought the candied yams - Yuck! But a lot of people like them. We always had apple/banana salad in honor of my Grandmother who had passed. It was gross, and I wasn’t alone in my distaste of it, made with apples, bananas, lettuce, gluttonous amounts of sugar mixed with mayo or Miracle Whip. When I got old enough to voice an opinion, I refused to eat it anymore, inspite of the vocalizations of my Aunts telling me I must eat it and like it unless I really didn’t love my grandma. I loved my Grandma very much and she wouldn’t make me eat that crap!

When my husband and I first bought our house, we decided to host Thanksgiving. My parents, my brother and my Mother-in-Law attended. A much smaller gathering than I grew up attending, but it was enough. We were proud to invite them to our new house and prepare the food. They had been doing it themselves for so many years. I’m still not sure how we pulled it off in this tiny house with a tiny kitchen, and all of us crowded around a tiny table, but we did. We did not have apple-banana salad, but my Mother and Mother-in-Law disagreed about how the gravy should be made. I don’t remember which way we went, but we had gravy, and it was fine. Since then, we haven’t hosted a large get-together for family Holidays, but we have celebrated with my Mother-in-Law at our place quite often. We also have a daughter, so it was nice that they could spend time together.

We have become a gluten-free and lactose-free family and we plant a good garden from which we harvest food for eating and canning every year. We look forward to making and serving much of our own, home-grown foods with the Thanksgiving meal, including carrots, potatoes, squash, rutabagas and pumpkin. That means I have experimented with, and presented different food than what is traditionally expected.

My Mother-in-Law is also diabetic, so we chose to include options with low-fat, low-carb, low-sugar items, which our small family finds quite good, but others are less enthusiastic. Our choices are often frowned upon because they don’t follow tradition, no matter how much better those food options may be. For instance, we make a wild-rice dressing instead of the traditional bread stuffing, and we don’t much care for gravy, so we eliminated that. I do like mashed potatoes, but we mix them with squash. And I love the garlic sautéed mushrooms that are now a staple! We do roast a whole turkey, which has always turned out great! And we make pumpkin pie from scratch, with a gluten-free crust and real pumpkin! Nothing like it. We also enjoy a tasty breakfast of baked French toast. We make it Gluten Free, but it’s packed with sugar, fat and carbs. Good to enjoy once a year, but it’s just for us. Definitely not diabetic-friendly!

My extended family no longer attends Holiday festivities at our house and neither does my Mother-in-Law. I think they were offended by the break in tradition, but those are theirs, these are ours - and I like the option to keep changing it up.

Thanks for reading! Have you incorporated new “traditions” into your Holidays to the resistance of family traditionalists?

extended familyhumanityvalues
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About the Creator

KJ Aartila

A writer of words in northern WI with a small family and a large menagerie.

My Substack

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Outstanding

Excellent work. Looking forward to reading more!

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Comments (7)

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  • J. S. Wadeabout a year ago

    I’m really hungry now. Hungry enough for the apple banana salad …maybe. 😂. I enjoyed reading your new traditions.

  • Heather Hublerabout a year ago

    So happy your own family has found a way to make new traditions and enjoy food from your land and spend time together. It's a shame when others can't try something new. Great writing :)

  • Cathy holmesabout a year ago

    You shouldn't be expected to always observe traditions passed on by others. Make your own traditions. Good for you.

  • Rick Henry Christopher about a year ago

    Good for you for creating your own healthier traditions! Time is a progressive thing... It keeps moving forward and is constantly growing and changing. It's good to move forward.

  • JoAnn Ryanabout a year ago

    Sometimes you just gotta do your own thing. Good for you!

  • Gina C.about a year ago

    Thank you so much for sharing! My family has also had some changes to tradition lately. And, may I just say, I got hungrt reading about all the food here :)

  • Babs Iversonabout a year ago

    Changes and breaking from traditional is a good thing. Splendid story!!!💕😊💖💕

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